


What Good Does Fear Do?

by SnowMercury



Category: The Magnus Archives
Genre: Bugs, Fear Entities as Friends, Fungi, Insects, Multi, Other, Worms, abuse mention, intolerance mention, reinterpretation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:21:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22564672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnowMercury/pseuds/SnowMercury
Summary: Reinterpretation of the ways the fears can make lives better.
Comments: 22
Kudos: 69





	1. The Close

The Buried. The Choke. The Center. Too Close I Cannot Breathe. Pressure, unending, scraping on all sides- but that is if we were discussing the fearful side of this entity.

The Buried is also present in the hugs of loved ones, in the subtle pressure of others, in laying under a heavy weighted blanket as the rain drizzles outside. In the arms of someone you care for wrapped around you, or in the pressure of their body as they fall asleep leaning on you during a movie. In the quiet, subtle moments. In the weight of a pet laying on your legs.

The Choke is there in the cat that sleeps on your face during the night, fur in your nose and activating your allergies, but you can't bear to move them. In the feeling of swallowing food, teary after a breakup, when you can feel it slide down your throat. When you see a loved one after a long time apart, and your breath catches in your throat with your sobs, unbidden and full of emotion and longing and fear and happiness and love.

The Center is there in the throng of people around you, marching towards a single purpose. Pressure on all sides, all towards one goal. It is there in a bed, falling asleep with another's arms around you. It is there in the feel of a spotlight on you, the pressure of expectations weighing down on you to perform what you have practiced for so long.

Too Close I Cannot Breathe. Too Close, you think as the scent of your crush's perfume longers in the air, I Cannot Breathe. Too Close, you think as your dog knocks the air out of your lungs with one swift pounce, I Cannot Breathe. Too Close, you push your older sister off of you from where she has pretended she has collapsed, I Cannot Breathe.

The Close is not always an enemy. It can be comfy warmth, or the refreshing chill. It can be the Closeness of a loved one, the embrace of the earth itself. It is not only a fear. It can be a form of Love.


	2. The Recycler

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i needed some extra names for the corruption to expand upon, so thanks to sunny (tumblr @frecwulf) for The World Decays Around Me and to ryl (tumblr @coolranch-autism) for The Loving Sickness as Corruption titles!
> 
> i'm def going to need suggestions for the flesh, slaughter, hunt, and uhhh any that has only like. one or two names. leave a comment & where youd like me to credit you nd ill see if i can work it in! ty!!!

Writhing, twisting, curling mass of worms. The slow decay, the provision of a home, the growth of life from something not even visible to us. The Corruption, Filth, Crawling Rot, the Hive, The World Decays Around Me, The Loving Sickness, There Is Something Crawling.

Have you ever felt connected? 

Wanted to help nurture someone to become something, to live? Have you seen a moth start to crawl outside of their cocoon, bursting into the world as something irrevocably changed from what they were before? The Corruption- the slow, slow all-encompassing change into something... different. Not necessarily bad, although that is the association of the word, but into something different. 

There are little mites living in your eyelashes, taking care of you. Roughly half of the cells in your body do not share ‘your’ DNA (Your DNA? Would you be anywhere without a Mitochondria? Would you have even been able to live as long as ‘you’ have? Who are you- what are you, if not a giant mash of cells constantly dying and living and dying and living and being born again?). Without these different cells, these cells living in your gut, helping you to break down food and drink and intruders and those things dangerous to you, you would not have homeostasis. 

The Filth. It is true, that after a few days of not cleaning something in consistent use, it will start to become filthy. Grimy, covered in muck. Have you wondered why that is? A defense mechanism. The cells in your body, the stratified squamous cells that make up your epidermal layers, they secrete oils that keep any invading cells and viruses from making short work of your immune system, your nervous system, your circulatory system- all working together. All needed. All different but the same but different but the same but All Are One.

Filth is the sign that something is living, that something is alive. It is a byproduct of life. Without it, the world would be sterile and clean and dead, utterly dead and made only of stone and rock and minerals and not even that, necessarily. 

The Crawling Rot. Trees once stood tall, even when dead, monuments to the fragility of life, compressing into charcoal and becoming grainy dust- until fungus learned to decay even that. Plastic populates the landfills, piled high and unrecycleable- a fungus lives in the rainforest that can break down plastic, did you know? A way to use what has been thrown away and to make a new life of it. Have you heard of where penicillin comes from?

There is comfort in knowing that even through the most irrevocable change, you will still be celebrating life. In being connected with others- moments of prediction, of knowing someone so deeply you understand their actions. In knowing that even if you feel full of filth and rot and disgust, you can still do good and still find others like you. There is something in redemption after death due to sacrifice for the greater good; a tragedy to be sure, mentions of the corrosive nature of rot, but ultimately something to be honored. 

Have you ever seen an ant farm? Scouts searching for food for their families, nursery ants taking care of the young ones, tunnels being built and lived in. We are, too, a global community- one with the potential for care and connection with each of the smallest members. We rely on each other in ways unrecognized by many, but no less important. 

Do you not recycle? See the art pieces using pieces of hard material or scrapbooks or collages, torn and taped and tacked together, all connected and made with pieces of what was before and turned into something new, and beautiful, and never before seen despite being created from the things of before? 

The World Decays Around Me. The World Decays. I look out over the fallen trees, fill my nose with the smell of dirt, created from fallen plants and lichens and broken apart rocks all grown into like branches into the sky. The World Decays. I run my hand over the gleaming nose of a statued dog, petting the mascot for good luck, hoping for a good final grade. The World Decays. I have made a composting bin out back, full of rot and garbage and torn up paper, and once the soil has been returned to soil, I use it to grow backyard fruits in. And so, the World Decays.

Have you ever noticed how, sometimes in sickness, you do not realize you are sick? You feel the coughing, you see the sneeze, the sick, the trembles of cold and fever. The thermostat raises and you are stuck underneath a blanket under a fan, cold washcloth stuck to your head and warm soup in a cup on the table. And you Know you are sick, you can feel the dull ache, but you are also very much so Distant. You are reminded of the importance of a clear nose, and a homeostatic temperature, and a settled stomach. You remember these things now, and the first breath you take once you are well is one full of joy, and relief, and settling, once again, into routine.

Do you know what we did before vaccines? Inoculations. You were infected with a lesser form of the disease, something related that your body could much better fight off. Cow maids became infected with Cow Pox, and didn’t have to face the prospect of Small Pox. A smaller, lesser disease, one more friendlier, one that was more of a Loving Sickness, something connected and important and preventative, an embrace that kept one from death. 

And, after it all, There Is Something Crawling. 

In the very bottom of the sea, bereft of most life, out of the view of the sun, There Is Something Crawling.

In the heart of the earth, temperatures too high for anything living we can see with the naked eye, There Is Something Crawling.

In the unknown of space, on asteroids and other planets and barren rock and disjointed, unconnected, matter- There Is still, always will be, always can be, always has been, Something Crawling.


	3. Rest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heed the 'abuse mention' and 'intolerance mention' tags for this chapter! word of the author: those characters find happiness outside of the story snippets I've shown you, but to best show that it can be good and comforting and right to hide, i needed to show that there is something to hide From. that darkness that hides can be a friend, that not everything thats hidden is bad, you know? i drew on my own experiences being closeted and from what my older sister has told me about being in an interracial relationship, and from historical contexts. 
> 
> i hope that the things you arent ready to reveal yet stay hidden for as long as you need them to. & that you find people you can reveal them to.

There is comfort in the concealed. In blurred edges fading into a darkness into a blank emptiness, unseeing, unknown. 

Some might fear the unknown. But the unknown is limitless potential- limitless, both for bad, and for good. The dark, the secrets, the things hidden from others- they can be good.

Meeting with someone under the shade of night. Avoiding the streetlights, held hands visible only in the faint orange light. Only an outline, a sketch of who is there, obscuring the specifics of who and hiding away details of gender as they hurry home away from eyes, stealing kisses away from cameras and passerby, dropping hands when they notice someone in the distance. The Dark gives its blessing. 

Lovers meeting in a club, stealing glances; hiding who they are from the others. The world has been cruel, full of too much light, harsh and searing and white, and they can find comfort in each other. In the shade of darkness, there is no one but them to care about the differing colors of skin that they have. They can find happiness. The Dark gives its blessing. 

Some find comfort, when surrounded by people who insist on Knowing, on Judging, on Tearing Down and Setting Ablaze and Burning At The Stake, in the hidden things. In the name they choose for themself, under the covers in their room with no door, a pocket flashlight and a baby name’s book borrowed from the library being searched for meaning. For the name that feels Right. They cannot tell anybody yet, do not want to tell anybody yet- they’ve already been forced to tell so much, that they want to keep this comfort to themself, not letting anybody tear it away too. Not yet. The sound of slamming doors and raised voices and clattering, noisy dishes ring in their ears as they turn off the light. The Dark gives its blessing. 

There is an entire world within their head. There are secrets unknown. They do not want to be laid bare for all the world to see, all the world to gawk at. No, they are not ready for that. And the Dark will give them time, give them darkened corners to comfort each other or themself, silent support in glances going missed by others but Knowing, Knowing only between few, because the difference between Knowing and Unknowing is so much closer than we would expect, because to Know is to mean that others do Not Know. 

We seek to Know the Unknown. The limitless potential- the forever-expanse of space, a shared domain with the Vast, another sister-fear, but part of the Darkness’s domain nonetheless. To see between stars, inky blackness concealing what we cannot see with the naked eye. 

The Darkness offers us respite. Darker tones contrasting with bright, almost mechanical lights, revealing and harsh and burning and searing and highlighter, neon-bright, imperceptible in hue because it is all so bright of a shade- it hurts our eyes to look at for too long, so we long for darkness. Dark mode on websites, on our phones, on our computers- easier to see what truly needs to be seen when darkness can whisk all the unnecessary light away, hide it under a lampshade. 

It is also easier to live when you can rest. To Rest is more than just sleep, that is true, but sometimes it is easier to just not know. To live in obliviousness- not forever, and to become impeded by it, but for just a little bit. To have a break sorely needed, to process and learn and look upon yourself. 

When you are in the dark, you See yourself the most clearly of all.

Some just struggle with what they see there. It is okay, the Darkness, the Restfulness says. You can sleep. Nothing need find you here, not unless you want to be found. It doesn’t matter much either way. You can hide just a little bit longer. You can conceal until you are ready to share.

To be blind isn’t a bad thing, after all. ‘Forever Blind’, the Darkness is called. In its comfort, this can be true; darkness and an absence of light. There are bacteria that live without light. Chemotrophs. There can be warmth in darkness. Warmth in a house completely covered by snow, insulated against the outside world but so, so warm and so, so Dark but does that matter? Does that matter when you are Alive, and Well, and simply weathering a storm?

Does the hibernating bear like the darkness of its den? 

Does the world get to be too much at times, too loud and too bright and too light and too sharp and busy and constant and There, always There, always buzzing in ears and fingers and eyes and nose and tongue and stomach, and do you ever just wish for a moment Alone. Of quiet and darkness and scentlessness and nothing around you and of Rest. 

Sometimes you just want Rest. Recovery. 

It is okay, the darkness says. I am here, says Rest.


End file.
